Denise, from Switzerland, will be the new Volkswagen teacher. Yes, I am leaving them behind to go see greener pastures. Literally! Mike brought up the good point that their grass really is greener in Norway. All that rain... northern climate... Anyway, she sat in on our class last night and we had some fun. True, I did slip up once and didn't correct a mistake made by one of the students until after the fact. I still feel dumb for that. But at the end of class, I put the group into pairs and they had to ask questions at an airport, train station or bus depot. And Denise helped do the roleplay with me.
Charles and Brian were at a train station and needed to buy tickets to Hamburg. Brian did most of the talking, but Charles did execute some very grammatically correct questions, if I may boast. Then Derek and Bret were at an airport. They decided to be like the kids on The Amazing Race - with no money to spend on plane tickets. And they were trying to get to Japan, so Denise jumps in and says she can row them to Osaka. It was damn funny. We ran over. So, Thomas and Jenny didn't have a lot of time to perform, but they did very well. I was really proud of them. They had to speak entirely in German with only a few minutes prep. And that's really the first time they've ever done something like that. They all did excellent for what they've learned so far. It'll be kinda hard to not teach them anymore. I really love that group - they're all-star students.
And Denise is coming next week too - so we're going to come up with a fun lesson to teach together. That way, they can get used to her teaching style. I don't want to shock them into Level Two. Rather ease them into it. Maybe it'll all be roleplays and conversations. Lots of speaking. That's where they need the practice. And Denise is going through training this next week, so she'll have some fresh ideas. At least I feel comfortable handing them over to her. The secretary made me mad though. I told her that Denise was coming and told her a little bit about Denise. So I said she's been a teacher for a while and is now working for Berlitz. That she "works" over at Stanford, so she's in the area. She's from Switzerland, so she speaks Italian and French also. Then the secretary goes - oh good, she's a German-speaker! Now, I like to think that she meant this as "Oh cool, she's from a German-speaking country! That's good!" But in weeks past, she's commented on the fact that my students are always asking her questions about their homework. Why is the grammar like this? What does this word mean again? And I don't think she approves that I (a non-native German-speaker) am teaching them German. Like I'm not teaching them properly.
Like I care.
I'd like to see her get up in front of a group of engineers and try to teach something completely foreign to them without making mistakes. And at the same time, have fun with it. She gets frustrated just having to finish her work everyday. I always see her editing some excel sheet before she leaves and she's always huffing and puffing over it. Patience is a virtue when teaching.
But I shouldn't judge her just because she judges me. :)
On a side note, Emily is dynomite and deserves a silver star for bravery in battle. She flushed the toilet and is started overflowing. Not only that, but it didn't stop overflowing. So, she calls me in the middle of class and is freaking out. I go back to my class and Charles says: Find the elliptical knob. The water knob, turn it off. So, I call Em back and tell her that. Later last night, I told her we needed to buy him a drink. For saving my bathroom and the carpet. It was inches away from getting underneath the carpet. And Mom wasn't home for all this, so she would have killed someone if the carpet had been ruined. We just don't have the funds for that right now, because we'd have to replace the whole carpet. Or at least we might as well have if that happened. Poor Em used up all the towels in the house trying to soak the toilet water up. So, with all that's gone on with my bathroom of late, I'm thinking someone somewhere has a voodoo doll of me and my bathroom and just hates me with a passion. Because this is ridiculous.
And the Russians aren't helping. They came by the other night and were taking a look at my bathroom. And they saw the buckets of water that we have there to catch the drip from the light. She asked me how long it's been there. I said a month. She looks at me and says jokingly - A month? What, you don't like to dump it out by now? And she sorta laughed at me like I was some little child who didn't know better. I said - no, it still drips. I think she thought it filled up and then we just left it there for a month. Right - I may be messy, but not that messy. And they kept asking all these questions that I didn't know the answer to. I don't know, they just made me feel stupid. And I kept telling them to come back when my mom was home and gave them her cell number. But she just kept asking questions. It was a bit frustrating.
I guess this entry turned into a little venting session. Sorry...
I'm babysitting tonight - the sweet Baur boys. And tomorrow night, I'm buying Charles a drink for his wisdom (we're celebrating V-Day at the Crowbar in SF). And Sunday is like an all-day kids marathon. 9-1pm at church because they're having their annual meeting and then babysitting the Wolf boys from 5 to 10pm. So it'll be a jampacked weekend. Even the plumber's coming to join in on the festivities. :) You can tell how thrilled I am.
I'll let you know if I stay hinged.